Tea Party

I was in the mood for a wee bit of whimsy. And nothing seemed to have the potential to satisfy that better than a tea party. With summery print dresses and big hats, and typical English tea food of course.
Two dilemnas, however, soon presented themselves. First, I have never been to an English tea and hence have no idea what true tea party victuals are. Also, the day turned out to be sweltering, much too hot for tea.
The easy solution to the former was a varied selection of iced teas: my mother's "famous" iced black tea with fresh mint and lemon; cranberry white tea from Trader Joe's; and a chilled soy rooibos vanilla latte.
The latter was resolved with a google search and some blatant disregard for tradition. Rhubarb scones made their way onto the menu based on a great photo at my favorite food-porn website, and the rhubarb in the fridge calling to be used. Muffins had to make an appearance, and my mother's blueberry muffins are also quite famous amongst my friends, so they were casted to make the cameo.
I put in a couple of nods to real English teas with some cute cucumber sandwiches and Battenburg cake. Apparently cucumber sandwiches were a sign of high society and wealth, the idea being that poorer diners wouldn't be able to eat such nutrition- and protein-lacking food. That made those sound appetizing. I did manage to give them an exciting twist by putting basil leaves on either side of the cucumber (a flavorful vegan substitution for the butter, whose purpose was the keep the bread from getting soggy) and using a heart-shaped cookie cutter...though of course everything that emerges from my kitchen is baked with love!
The Battenburg cake was intense. To make it, I divided an 8-inch square bake pan in half with aluminum foil, and dyed half of a batch of vanilla cake batter pink and the other half yellow. After baking, these were each cut in half for four rectangular prisms, two pink and two yellow. I learned after putting layers of rolled-by-hand marzipan (I suggest buying the prerolled kind!!) through the cake and around the outside that technically apricot jam is used for the inside - oh well, we were all marzipan lovers anyhow!!
My marzipan ran out about 3/4 of the way through covering the outside of the cake, and I switched to another package which ended up being a different shade of white - alas!! The miss-matched ordeal was covered successfully in a thin layer of white icing, all the better to cover up the cake until the first cut when all my friends had arrived - what a wonderful, colorful, delicious surprise!